Byzantine Dress - Clerical Dress

Clerical Dress

This is certainly the area in which Roman and Byzantine clothing is nearest to living on, as many forms of habit and vestments still in use (especially in the Eastern, but also in the Western churches) are closely related to their predecessors. Over the period clerical dress went from being merely normal lay dress to a specialized set of garments for different purposes. The bishop in the Ravenna mosaic wears a chasuble very close to what is regarded as the "modern" Western form of the 20th century, the garment having got much larger, and then contracted, in the meantime. Over his shoulder he wears a simple bishop's omophorion, resembling the clerical pallium of the Papacy, and a symbol of his position. This later became much larger, and produced various types of similar garments, such as the epitrachelion and orarion, for other ranks of clergy. Modern Orthodox clerical hats are also survivals from the much larger and brightly coloured official headgear of the Byzantine civil service.